First, it must be clearly understood that all of Malraux's works are novels of situation. Each one presents a male protagonist who, haunted by his sense of alienation, attempts to find himself through active communal involvement that inevitably leads to his defeat.

Ironically, this defeat serves as the catalyst for him to heroically accept his tragic destiny with his fellow man. In Man's Fate, the focus broadens to include a multiple protagonist, made up of a politically and psychologically diverse group of individuals. In reality, however, Malraux has created but one protagonist, Modern Man, given him different names and placed him in various historical settings. In The Conquerors (1928), he is Garine, a gambler and adventurer, involved in a power struggle over Britain's expulsion from Hong Kong; in The Royal Way (1930), he is Claude Vannec, a fortune hunter, involved in a dangerous archeological expedition in Indochina that promises to...